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Federal agents raided former President Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago home in Palm Beach, Fla., this week, aided by a search warrant and looking for secret documents that may have been improperly removed from government custody.
The Department of Justice allegedly is acting in the interests of the public, claiming they have a right to know if the security of these documents has been compromised. So be it, we do have that right.
But we as the American people also have the right to know exactly what kind of case they are building and on what it is based.
Whether you are a citizen who supports Trump or not is irrelevant. This is a Constitutional issue that affects us all as Americans.
Usually when the FBI has a search warrant, they know quite well what they are going in there to find. There can be surprises, to be sure, but the feds play to win. The conviction rate in most federal jurisdictions is well over 95 percent, so they don’t even put chips down at the table unless they already have a winning hand.
Love him or otherwise, we are dealing with a former President of the United States. If you are going to send agents to raid his home, root through his wife’s clothing and every other possession they have and walk around the complex with uzis, we deserve an explanation as to what evidence there is that created the probable cause for this search.
The danger here is not only to the Constitutional rights of those involved – not just the former president, but his family as well – but to our country as a whole.
We are so politically divided right now that this effort can easily be construed as a political gambit to prevent Trump from running again in 2024. Again, this may make some people happy, but what cannot make any American happy is the use of our taxpayer-funded government resources to influence elections.
At the same time, if there is evidence being sought that Trump himself sought to change the outcome of the 2020 election, that too should be pursued through all legitimate legal channels.
What cannot happen, though, is the permission of sitting presidents and administrations to use the power at their disposal to wage war against their enemies for political gain. Even The New York Times – long a “liberal” foil of Trump and other conservative leaders – has asked questions about whether these searches are indeed warranted with true evidentiary support.
Our government owes us an explanation as to what the FBI is doing, and if there is a case to prosecute, let our judicial system run its course. But allowing this incident to further fuel our national divide is doing nothing to preserve our American institutions.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Thursday the Justice Department is making plans to release the content of the search warrant and the contents of the receipt of items removed.
The sooner, the better.